Sanders Urges Justice Department to Block AT&T-Time Warner Merger

Wednesday, October 26, 2016

BURLINGTON, Vt., Oct. 26 – Warning of a “gross concentration of power” in the news media, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) sent a letter Wednesday urging the U.S. Department of Justice to block a proposed merger of AT&T and Time Warner, Inc.

“This proposed merger is just the latest effort to shrink our media landscape, stifle competition and diversity of content, and provide consumers with less while charging them more,” Sanders wrote in a letter to the head of the department’s antitrust division. “This merger represents a gross concentration of power that runs counter to the public good and should be blocked.”

AT&T announced Saturday that it had agreed to an $85.4 billion acquisition of Time Warner, a move which must be approved first by federal regulators.

“The diversity of programing would be further diminished by truncating the relationship of content and distribution. When one giant company owns both the content and the means of distribution, there is a clear disincentive to provide additional choices to consumers,” Sanders wrote.

Consumers have seen negative outcomes from companies who use their scale and power to raise prices in the past. After AT&T acquired DirecTV in 2015, AT&T raised prices for DirecTV services. AT&T also exempted DirecTV streaming video from data caps on AT&T's mobile Internet service.

“The media and telecommunications landscape is changing. It is important that public policy concerns guide these changes, so that we may preserve our democratic discourse and open competitive markets for speech and commerce,” Sanders wrote.